Conversation and Technology: From the Telephone to the Internet
About this ebook
Conversation and Technology draws on recent theory and empirical research in conversation analysis, ethnomethodology and the social construction of technology. In novel contributions to each of these areas, Hutchby argues that the ways in which we interact can be profoundly shaped by technological media, while at the same time we ourselves are shapers of both the cultural and interactional properties of these technologies.
The book begins by examining a variety of theoretical perspectives on this issue. Hutchby offers a critical appraisal of recent sociological thinking, which has tended to over-estimate society's influence on technological development. Instead he calls for a new appreciation of the relationship between human communication and technology. Using a range of case studies to illustrate his argument, Hutchby explores the multiplicity of ways in which technology affects our ordinary conversational practices.
Readers in areas as diverse as sociology, communication studies, psychology, computer science and management studies will find much of interest in this account of the human and communicative properties of various forms of modern communication technology.
About the author
University and Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research involves the application of conversation analysis to various areas of technologically-mediated interaction, including the distinctive properties of broadcast talk and the possibilities of human-machine interaction; as well as the analysis of children's communicative competence
